ADR-011: Editorial Visual Brand System

Status: Accepted

Last updated: 2026-10-16

Decision

Use the Monument core × Editorial masthead system for all Palamedes web surfaces:

• warm paper #faf9f4 is the ground, navy #0e2a4d is the primary ink, and bronze #8e6628 is the single semantic accent;
• Cinzel Hellenic is the display face, paired with restrained body type, mono uppercase micro-labels, and tabular numbers;
• micro-labels use one 10 px treatment (11 px is reserved for the larger eyebrow role), and gray-spec is no lighter than #6f695b on paper so small text retains WCAG AA contrast;
• mastheads and running heads use rules, alignment, and whitespace rather than cards; border radius, box shadows, and gradients are outside the system;
• structural rules are one-pixel hairlines. Editorial qualifications, asides, and boundaries use the shared EditorialRail primitive. Its structural tone uses ink/hairline tokens; its emphasis tone may use bronze. Thick colored side tabs are not part of the system;
• bronze communicates interaction or semantic emphasis. Ordinary grouping must not spend the accent merely for decoration;
• non-brand marketing pictograms use only licensed Streamline Sharp Duo exports recorded in site/streamline-asset-manifest.md. Framework and vendor marks are the intentional brand exception;
• larger editorial illustrations, when used, come only from Streamline UX Duotone. Keep them distinct from the small Sharp Duo pictograms, preserve their geometry, and use the same navy/bronze palette. Use either layer only where it helps the reader; avoid repeated decorative icons or illustrations;
• framework marks identify integrations, not customers or adoption. Preserve their geometry and record their provenance and usage constraints in site/framework-brand-usage.md;
• public benchmark values follow the rounding, scope, and evidence policy below. Exact values remain available in the checked source artifacts.

ARDO continues to own documentation chrome. Palamedes applies this language through ARDO's public token and component APIs rather than overriding internal classes.

Benchmark Presentation

• Display whole milliseconds below one second and one decimal place for multi-second values. Floor public speedup factors so rounding never increases a claim. Retain exact medians and ratios in checked reports.
• Derive displayed values from those checked results and fail the site build when quoted values drift.
• Describe measured extract-and-catalog-update results as workflow comparisons. Exclude narrower extraction-only runs from same-scope headline ranges and keep their qualification beside each result. Keep warm-cache measurements separate from cross-tool comparisons.
• Prefer a compact results ledger with a dominant time, secondary factor, and visible scope per workflow. Keep the environment, corpus, date, and report link adjacent. Avoid unit grids or unreadably small linear bars.
• Make claims understandable without graphics and provide equivalent text or tables for visual results. Preserve linear reading order, keyboard access, responsive reflow, reduced-motion behavior, and readable no-JavaScript output.

Licensed Asset Handling

The asset manifest owns the exact asset inventory, export dates, optimized-file hashes, and recorded license allowances. Store only used, optimized project SVGs under site/public/icons/streamline/sharp-duo/ or site/public/illustrations/streamline/ux-duotone/. Replacements stay within their respective set and update the manifest.

Keep third-party assets outside the repository's MIT OR Apache-2.0 grant. Preserve the root third-party notice and public Streamline attribution. Do not redistribute assets as a standalone library or selectable catalog. Licensed source access stays with the account owner; contributors receive the prepared project assets. Keep account screenshots, invoices, and license records private. Count unique assets rather than placements, and do not treat an export limit as a project usage allowance.

Context

Palamedes needs one visual language across marketing pages, documentation, proof artifacts, and shared site UI. A warm editorial masthead and technical ledger need consistent typography, icon rules, numeric presentation, and callout treatment. Without a shared contract, individual routes can drift back to generic documentation chrome, mixed icon families, or several competing callout systems.

Alternatives Considered

Per-route styling

Rejected. Local choices recreate the drift this decision is intended to stop and make proof, marketing, and generated documentation look like separate products.

Thick accent callouts

Rejected. Four-pixel side tabs compete with the ledger grid and make bronze a generic grouping device instead of a meaningful accent.

Mixed open icon libraries

Rejected. Mixing Lucide or other sets with Sharp Duo loses the deliberate geometry and makes licensing/provenance harder to audit. The Sharp Duo inventory and its attribution remain inspectable in the asset manifest.

Consequences

• Shared components and tokens carry visual changes across all site surfaces.
• New callouts use EditorialRail; the site build guard rejects a return of border-l-4 callouts under site/app.
• Designers and implementers must preserve adjacent scope and provenance for public numbers rather than treating them as decorative statistics.
• Streamline additions require a manifest entry, license verification, and the repository attribution described by the asset manifest.
• Framework marks retain their own trademark constraints and are not evidence of customer adoption.

Validation And Review Triggers

The shared site UI tests distinguish structural and emphasis rails, and scripts/verify-site-editorial-rails.mjs enforces the one-pixel rail contract. The site benchmark guard verifies checked numeric presentation. Revisit this decision when the brand palette or display type changes, ARDO exposes a new theme contract, the icon license or selected family changes, or accessibility testing shows that a token or type treatment cannot meet the documented contrast and reflow requirements.